Some baloney to Clark’s claim B.C. will pay twice as much for carbon as Ontario
OTTAWA — “You can’t have a national carbon tax where the westerners who produce the energy are paying double what the people in central Canada are paying to use the energy, in terms of an additional carbon tax.” — British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, outside a first ministers meeting, Dec. 9, 2016.
For a brief moment last Friday, it looked like B.C. Premier Christy Clark might scuttle Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s hopes of emerging from a day-long first ministers meeting with a pan-Canadian framework agreement to combat climate change.
The sticking point was her insistence that Ontario and Quebec’s cap-and-trade market must impose a price on carbon emissions equivalent to provinces, such as B.C., that choose to impose a carbon tax.
On the face of it, there was no disputing Clark’s assertion that within five years, carbon-taxing provinces will be paying twice as much Ontario and Quebec.